Home#MOMBOSS Mommy Book Club: “Cultivate” A Grace Filled Guide to Growing and Intentional Life by Lara Casey

Mommy Book Club: “Cultivate” A Grace Filled Guide to Growing and Intentional Life by Lara Casey

First, let me start this post off by saying it is NOT a sponsored post. Nope, not a cent; just a deeply meaningful post from the heart. See a few years ago Lara Casey published her first book ” Make it Happen” and I was gifted a copy that was soon read and then re-gifted to another friend. Many copies later purchased for friends in need of encouragement, inspiration, and hope, this book has been an ongoing topic amongst my mommy friends. I have read it at least 6x and enjoyed listening to it on audible on many a long car ride, even my kids know Lara and her chilidren by name (they ask for playdates with Grace all the time). So naturally when Lara Casey announced she was writing her second book “Cultivate” I did a not so graceful dance party in my office. Over the last 2 years I have followed Lara on her social media pages and here at the office, we have implemented her power sheets (an entirely other post) and used her book as a study guide. Watching her write and rewrite her book, rejoicing with her in the joys and grieving and praying for her in the ruff spots of writing this book, as she opened up in a really raw way on her social media pages, has been a huge encouragment to me! Watching it all from my office in a little southern city, I was inspired to hear that growing slow is okay, starting over is okay, being emotionally vulnerable is okay. She, of course, does not know who I am but here at blmommy offices, Lara Casey and the Cultivate What Matters team are nearly a daily phrase.

See, Lara has one very powerful quote “she believed she couldn’t, so He did” and that one single quote has been hanging right in front of my office computer since I read it. Letting go, walking in faith vs. fear and knowing that HE did because I believed that I couldn’t. There are days, I don’t believe I can do it, the magazine, my family life, my marriage, friendships, or family, days I CAN’T do it but God knows and so HE did it for me. Realizing that I wasn’t called to do it ALL, I was called to do what matters, to culivate the right things, to say yes to what matters to me and no to the things that will not matter when I am 80 and look back on my life.

I couldn’t be more excited for this book, I nearly went and purchased colorful Lara Casey inspired balloons to host my own launch party here at Beauty & Lifestyle Mommy but I refrained and instead we made mimosas and watched Lara live on Facebook as she gave birth to the book she has carried inside her heart and spirit for 2 years. It’s with everything in me that I endorse this book as one of our 2017 Mommy reading book club books (see the book club in Volume 7.) I encourage you to walk, no run to your closest bookstore and get your own copy, one that I know you will cry and laugh while reading. In fact, buy two copies, one for you and one for a friend that you know needs encouragement in her life. This my friends is what life is all about, good friends, living in faith not in fear, breaking out of our comfort zones, and trusting that when you cultivate what matters, nothing else will matter.

About “CULTIVATE” A Grace Filled Guide to Growing an Intentional Life

A flourishing life is possible—no perfection required!
Women often feel like they have to have it all together in order to live a meaningful life. Instead they feel inadequate, overwhelmed, and exhausted as they to figure out how to do it all. Author, business owner, and mom to three Lara Casey offers sound and grace-filled advice: “We can’t do it all, and do it well. But, we can choose to cultivate what matters.” Welcome to the journey of getting messy in the rich soil of possibility—embracing imperfect, grace-filled progress to grow a life of joy. Written as part encouragement anthem and part practical guide, Cultivate offers wisdom from God’s Word alongside lessons Lara has learned in her garden. Woven throughout is her personal story that helps release readers from the pressure to achieve and gives them freedom to move from planning to planting a meaningful legacy. “It’s in the imperfect—the mess of the dirt—that good things grow,” Casey reminds readers. “Peonies grow through the dirt, and so do we.” Readers will learn to embrace the season they’re in, finding balance as they interact in fresh ways with their current life scenarios, with God, and in the communities where they are planted.
Find the joy and the freedom that comes in cultivating what matters, little by little, with God’s transforming grace.

SPECIAL FEATURES INCLUDE:
Actionable Cultivate It prompts throughout the book A ten-week Cultivate Together discussion guide with questions for small groups “Grace from the Garden” vignettes provide encouragement and inspiration

Meet Lara

Lara Casey is a mom to three (one through the gift of adoption), a grateful wife, and a believer in the impossible. She created the PowerSheets grace-filled goal setting planner and the Write the Word journals, and she founded Southern Weddings magazine a decade ago. Lara is also the author of Make it Happen: Surrender your Fear. Take the Leap. Live on Purpose. She lives in Chapel Hill, NC, and loves getting her hands dirty in the garden.

Hi, y’all! I’m Faythe. I’m Alex and Karson's mommy, a blessed wife, a dreamer, and a believer in the "miracles” I am the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Beauty & Lifestyle Mommy — a magazine that I birthed and created from the ground up. I am passionate about faith, treasuring time with my little family on the weekends, and saying YES to the impossible, taking a leap of faith. I love the women I work alongside each day, addicted to hot chai lattes, building sand castles, the smell of the ocean, exploring new flavors in the kitchen, and living in historic St. Marys, Georgia. Yes, I am a proud Georgia Peach! Website: http://www.blmommy.com

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